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FACTORS INFLUENCING TEACHERS’ DIFFERENTIATED
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTIONAL CHOICES AND GIFTED AND NON-GIFTED
STUDENTS’ SELF-PERCEPTIONS
by
Dena M. Sellers
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2008
Copyright 2008 Dena M. Sellers

For years research on gifted education has discussed the importance of professional development for teachers of gifted students. This study examined data on how professional development has affected the choices of a group of teachers trained through a Javits Grant Project compared to a control group of teachers. This data revealed that professional development in models of teaching and differentiated curriculum and instruction resulted in teachers more often selecting differentiated strategies such as grouping practices, use of prompts of depth and complexity and teaching universal concepts and big ideas. Teachers also selected rationales for their choices of differentiated curriculum and instruction strategies such as affects all learners, expectations of the school or district, and expediency. Six of the teachers in the Javits Grant Project were then interviewed in order to determine how class composition affected their choices for differentiated or traditional lessons. These teachers' responses revealed that they would choose to teach the differentiated lesson consistently only for classes with a cluster group of gifted students or a class comprised solely of gifted students. This study also examined the self-perceptions of students in these six teachers' classrooms in order to determine if a relationship existed between the teacher s' choices for differentiated lessons and their students' self-perceptions. No significant relationship existed between the self-perception responses of either of the groups; gifted versus non-gifted students in each teacher 's classroom, or all gifted versus non-gifted students surveyed.

FACTORS INFLUENCING TEACHERS’ DIFFERENTIATED
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTIONAL CHOICES AND GIFTED AND NON-GIFTED
STUDENTS’ SELF-PERCEPTIONS
by
Dena M. Sellers
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2008
Copyright 2008 Dena M. Sellers